Audience tastes were never deeply entrenched with the coastal elite attitudes. Now, Hollywood focus groups are finding a sea change against them.
A diversity of stories, people, characters, settings and genres are important for the vitality of the entertainment industry. But attempts to push a particular brand of identity politics-driven storytelling have been less than successful. Now, a Hollywood insider is reaching out to That Park Place to share an interesting story that reflects how audiences are actively turning against material perceived as “woke”. While I’m not taking any particular angle on the the merit of such storytelling, I do find it interesting that the marketplace of “normies” is growing tired of tropes circled around tribalism, politics, geo-elitism, etc. It’s not shocking — when economic hard times arise, people often turn to entertainment to cheer them up, not for being further divided from neighbors, family members and citizens.
The following content is a direct message from someone working on Hollywood focus groups to determine viability of content for streaming and network platforms. The source’s identity is known by writers at That Park Place but we are keeping the name anonymous in order to protect their career. The website takes no position as to which shows should be selected, or even which narrative types, but is simply relaying information from this purported leak:
In regards to two shows presented to focus groups in the past two years… one being a real show with a budget and team behind it, the other a “dummy” show used as a reference for the purpose of the focus group (i.e. not really in development):
Cop show A:
A young POC policewoman gets dumped by her girlfriend and transfers to a new precinct in a Southern town where she is shocked by the racism, sexism and abuse of power of her new colleagues as well as their poor relations with the communities they serve. With few friends, she doesn’t know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys anymore and has to watch her back on and off duty while she tries to initiate change both in her department and in her community.
Cop show B:
Two young detectives (two white guys, one Ivy League and the other a good o’l boy) are partnered in Vegas where they cultivate informants, recurring girlfriends, every episode includes a fistfight with chairs and bottles flying, every second episode has a car chase, alleys with blowing newspapers, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, unnecessarily overpowered firearms, muscle cars on the strip, Vegas location used to the hilt – from grungy and run down to full on glam, an explosion per episode, tough police chief who supposedly hates the two rookies but he really has a heart of gold, good natured camaraderie among officers, helicopter unit heavily featured along with a K9 as a semi regular. Vegas is Vegas, cops are good, bad guys are the bad guys and they either get shot, blown up or caught and go to jail.
Ok, so we tested three episodes for each. These were partial animatics with an audio accompaniment with limited voice cast (different for each). No music. Which do you think tested better with all groups, no matter age, sex or race? Please say you said show B..
The production house went on to pitch show A to a couple of streamers (one was Netflix) with a few modifications. It was always their intent to pitch show A, show B was only there as a control, an assemblage of classic cop show beats to learn from. Here’s the kicker: While episodes for show A where adapted outlines done by the real writers of the proposed show, show B episodes where quickly hacked up adapted old episodes of Starsky & Hutch, with the car swapped out for a Dodge Challenger. Very little effort was put on the audio and the animatics (we objected at the discrepancy in quality of the presentation materials)… but it didn’t matter…. Show B popped huge, just huge! The leads, the chief, Vegas, the women, explosions, the helicopter, the Car, the Dog! All!
Conclusion: Man, somebody is going to get real rich putting a 1970s/1980s style cop show on the air on of these days. Just buy up the rights to some old Starsky & Hutch episodes and give them a very slight polish and you’d be golden. Clichés? Maybe, but are they still clichés if you don’t see them anymore? Oh, and streamers apparently passed on show A, though it’s been re-reworked – i think it’s now a military setting – and is still being shopped around. … “People don’t want to watch cop shows anymore.” Sigh …
It seems to the individual who sent us this leak, along with what we’re seeing at large, the market is speaking loud and clear. Entertainment content that seamlessly blends in races, backgrounds, opinions, etc, in a way that accurately reflects society is primed for success. Shows that divide and castigate people groups are bound to struggle. Actors and writers that subscribe to the latter ideology are poison to the well that is public good will. It’s a lesson corporations should be keenly learning.
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